Adjusting

Ocala, Florida

Weather: low 75 degrees, high 89 degrees, partly to mostly cloudy skies

Today was my second day out of the hospital, and I may have overdone things a little. Well, actually, I did overdo things. I tend to get impatient with inactivity because I'm used to being active. Being sick held me back from doing the things I wanted to do, so I thought I would start getting back in the swing of things today. Have you ever had your body tell you "That's enough"? Mine did today, and in no uncertain terms.

The doctors told me to start increasing my activities as I felt like it. I don't think they meant to hit the ground running (or almost) as I tried to do today.

Once I recovered from my ill-advised attempt at doing too much, and Carolyn finished fussing at me for being an idiot, I kicked back for the rest of the day and acted like I was retired. Should have done that sooner.

Now that I've beaten myself up enough about the day (with Carolyn's help), I'll tell what we did the rest of the day.

Nothing.

Well, not exactly nothing. Since we're still learning how to cook using low or no sodium (salt, to some), we stopped at a new grocery store to check out what kinds of groceries they have that may work for me. Did you know how hard it is to find foods that meet the criteria of no or low sodium? There are no prepared foods that we've been able to find that don't have high sodium levels. We don't even look at the restaurants anymore.

We have found some canned foods that have no salt added, and that's as good as it gets. Did you know that even ground turkey has sodium levels that are 3% of the RDA? Simple things like bread can have as much sodium as 10% of the RDA.

Tonight, we had a pasta sauce that Carolyn prepared using canned tomatoes, tomato paste, onions, garlic, black pepper, and a little salt substitute with penne pasta. It was very tasty, and we have found that we are now able to taste the subtle flavors in food that were covered up by salt. I have found that I like shredded wheat with a banana, and what's even better is the fact that there is no sodium present.

We're just getting started on learning this new way of eating, but so far, it's not been as hard as I thought it might be. I'll do whatever the doctors advise to keep from going through another week like the last one was.

More later, be safe.

Today's Town - Petaluma, California: Egg Capital Of The World

Not all who wander are lost.